Board To Review Request For Single-districts

TAVARES — The question of whether Lake County School Board members should be elected on a countywide basis or by the voters residing within their districts will come before the board again next week.

On Nov. 26, the Tri-City Branch of the NAACP asked the board to place on the November general election ballot a referendum that would allow voters to decide the issue.

Board members made no decision during that meeting on the request, which was soon followed by a similar request by the Lake County Democratic Executive Committee. The latter group also has asked that county commissioners switch to the single-member district system.

This time, school board attorney Walt McLin will bring up the issue. He has written a letter to board members, advising them of three alternatives they can take in response to the request.

The first response would be to take no action or defeat a motion for a referendum. However, McLin warns that this step could lead to a federal lawsuit against the board by the NAACP, which has threatened to sue if the system is not changed.

Both the NAACP and the Democrats contend that the present system discriminates against blacks.

T.H. Poole Sr., president of the Tri-City Branch and Florida Conference of the NAACP, suggests that blacks would stand a better chance of getting elected to the school board under the single-member district system because they are likely to be better known by voters in their communities than throughout the county.

They also say that school board members elected by district are more likely to be accountable to the people within their district than if they are elected at large. Several school board members, however, say they are accountable and suggest that district representation would lead to dogfights to divide resources among the districts.

The board also could choose to place the issue on the November ballot, McLin said. If voters approve the change, the board would design new district boundaries that would take effect in the November 1988 school board election. If voters reject the change, ''the Lake County School Board would have done all that is within its power to do to alter the current elective process,'' McLin said.

He said his research so far shows that the board cannot make the change without conducting a referendum. However, he also advised the board that he doubts a rejection of the single-member district system by voters would protect the board from a lawsuit.

The third alternative would be to direct McLin to further research the issue. If the board chooses that alternative, he suggests that the following areas be studied:

-- What effect, if any, the outcome of a public vote would have on federal court litigation.

-- How successful single-member district lawsuits have been in federal courts when it is impossible, either on a practical or geographic basis, to create a district with a black majority.

-- Alternatives, other than a referendum, to satisfy those who want the issue placed on the ballot.

McLin further suggests that if the board chooses the third approach that he be authorized to meet with representatives of NAACP and the Democratic Executive Committee to better determine what they are seeking by the change.

Two cities in Lake County -- Leesburg and Mount Dora -- have such systems. Members of the Florida Legislature also are elected by district.

If the board agrees to place the issue on the ballot, it would be the second referendum related to the school system. The board voted 4 to 1 last week to ask voters whether the school superintendent ought to be elected by voters or appointed by the school board.